Janos Kadar

Janos Kadar (26 May 1912-6 July 1989) was General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party from 25 October 1956 to 22 May 1988 (succeeding Erno Gero and preceding Karoly Grosz) and Prime Minister of Hungary from 4 November 1956 to 28 January 1958 (succeeding Imre Nagy and preceding Ferenc Munnich) annd from 13 September 1961 to 30 June 1965 (succeeding Munnich and preceding Gyula Kallai). His regime in Hungary was marked by great political freedoms, and Hungary became known as "the happiest barrack" during his reign of "goulash communism".

Biography
Janos Czermanek was born an illegtitimate child in Fiume, Austria-Hungary (now Rijeka, Croatia) on 26 May 1912, and he joined the illegal Hungarian Communist Party in 1932 and advanced to become its First Secretary in 1943. He was imprisoned by the Gestapo in 1944. After World War II, he became the Deputy Chief of Police in 1945. He succeeded Laszlo Rajk as Minister of the Interior in 1948, and subsequently instigated a series of show trials beginning with that of Rajk himself. He was arrested himself in 1951, but released and rehabilitated in 1954. He became General Secretary of the Communist Party in October 1956 and joined Imre Nagy's government as Minister of State.

A few weeks later, when it became clear that Warsaw Pact troops were about to put an end to the Hungarian Revolution, Kadar escaped to the Soviet forces. He signed a public request for Soviet intervention, which brought down Imre Nagy and elevated him to the leadership of the Communist government. To secure his position, he instigated a repressive regime which led to the execution, with or without trial, of hundreds of alleged opponents, supporters of Nagy. He also had Nagy tried and executed in secret in 1958. In 1963, he eased his iron grip as the country had been brought to submission, and in 1968 he created a New Economic Policy. This created greater economic freedom, as some small-scale private economic activity was allowed. This made him a favored communist leader in the eyes of the United States and the European Community, which were happy to grant the state considerable loans. In the 1970s and 1980s, the country became relatively prosperous by comparison with its Comecon beighbors. However, the dominant state sector remained moribund, as available funds were used to subsidize consumption rather than modernize industry. The increasingly desperate state of the Hungarian economy led to his replacement as General Secretary of the Communist Party in May 1988, whereupon he was given the ceremonial title of president of the party. He died in 1989.